It's actually a pretty simple process. You heat water and cream, sheer in sugar and methocel, emulsify it into chocolate then mix in a sodium alginate solution and a bit of salt. This forms a fairly thick ganache that you then pipe into mini savarin molds and freeze. The fozen ganache rings are given a soak in a calcium lactate bath, air dried, dipped in an egg and flour batter and breaded with panko and salt. They're given a few hours on a rack in the fridge to set the breading then deep fried.
What you get at the end is almost exactly what you see in the picture that accompanies the recipe. Why almost? Because in the picture they look like actual mini doughnuts. What you end up with by following the instructions as written is mini half doughnuts. Nice and rounded where the ganache was in the mold, flat on the back. So, in the interest of obtaining the nice symetrical doughnuts in Chef Iuzzini's picture, I decided to bond two of the half doughnuts to form one nicely shaped doughnut. Much better, worth the extra effort. I simply took two doughnuts, heated the flat surface of one with a torch, pressed them together and tossed them back in the freezer for a bit. It didn't take long to do all of them and I've already thought of an easier way to do it that I'll try next time. I'm wondering if this was a step that was unintentionally omitted from the recipe because the ganache made exactly double the number the recipe says it will. I did a half batch and got 60 of the half doughnuts, the full recipe is supposed to make 60 total.
Anyway, here they are.
Breaded and ready to fry:
Fried, crispy on the outside...
...and creamy on the inside...
...just as Chef Iuzzini promised. He delivered with these. They're fun and tasty and they made me smile. Finally, just for a little more fun, I decided to plate them. So here they are with coffee ice cream, toasted cinnamon caramel and chocolate mousse powder.
